War Making and State Making as Organized Crime

Eurocentrism, Racism and Knowledge

“…In other words, for more than 200 years not only did the Americas serve as a farm and mines for Europe but also modern European expansion and colonization was also a consequence of rivalry among Europeans (Palmer and Colton, 1978;Tilly, 1986 and. As part of the process of state formation in Europe, the European countries that were involved in the Atlantic 'slave' trade and slavery did so under national flags.…”

“Blind passes” and the production of green security through violence on the Guatemalan border

“…As Nordstrom (2004, 91) explains, the most powerful of these networks control finances and resources larger than many of the world's economies, and the value of illicit trade networks often dwarfs that of licit trade networks. Perhaps more threatening to centralized nation-states, illicit networks are not competing to become states -cartels engage in state-like behaviors primarily to usurp the state's role as protector, but not replace it (Tilly, 1985;Leeds, 1996).…”

Customs and Illegal Trade: Old Game - New Rules

“…In his work "War Making and State Making as Organized Crime," Tilly (1985) argues that due to bearing the monopoly of the legitimate means of violence, the state is the ultimate protector of its population. Protection business is very profitable, so that the state creates either "illusionary" or socially constructed threats, or these threats arise because of the state activity.…”

“…The first section provides a literature overview on the connection between statehood and illegal trade, which has become a subject of research by different scholars (Tilly 1985;Friman and Andreas 1999;Krasner 1999;Heyman and Smart 1999). The second section addresses the context in which illegal trade has evolved during the past years and latest challenges it poses for Customs.…”